


Litte Murderous Boxes

by pyalgroundblz (acidtonguejenny)



Category: Cable and Deadpool, Deadpool Kills the Marvel Universe, Marvel (Comics)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Gen, M/M, Spoilers, The bromance lives on
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-21
Updated: 2012-08-21
Packaged: 2017-11-12 15:11:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/492581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acidtonguejenny/pseuds/pyalgroundblz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Deadpool's killing spree eventually brings him to Cable.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Litte Murderous Boxes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Scribe-Protra](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Scribe-Protra).



> Birthday fic for [Scribe-Protra](http://scribe-protra.livejournal.com/) :DD Contains spoilers for Deadpool Kills the Marvel Universe up to issue #3.
> 
> Edited and altered a bit as of 3/3/13.

Wade's mind had always been a confusing whirl of--of _Wade_. Outdated TV trivia and firearm specs weighed heavily upon by a consuming _awareness_ that Cable did not (and never expected to) understand, with insanity added to taste. He never looked into Wade's mind if he could help it. Pain and nosebleeds often resulted, as well as a sense of having strained something important. 

But now there simply wasn't _time_ to find a clever solution, a third option. Like everyone else--Cable often forgot--in the face of never-ending jokes and Bea Arthur fanboying that Wade Wilson was an experienced assassin, and rarely wanted for work.

Now, something had slipped a little too far down the slippery slope and Deadpool was on a rampage that had finally brought him to Cable's (figurative) doorstep, and Cable was a soldier who had survived literally dozens of apocalypses, but Deadpool was _fast_. He had a knife in every fold, and he shook off Cable's preemptive attack like it was nothing. His guts threatened to spill out from a shotgun blast to the middle, but were already correcting themselves.

Cable tried another shot, and narrowly missed a bowie knife aimed for his throat before giving up. He threw Deadpool away from him with a telekinetic blast and dove into the madman's mind with a deep breath. 

It _hurt_. It always hurt. Like his skull was trying to implode and explode at the same time, locked in a cycle of battling forces. Bright colors and deranged rambling….except….

There was a troubling quiet to the space. Not completely (Cable doubted Wade stopped thinking even when his head was detached) but the usual idiocy was muted, even the _awareness_ pushed to the side. Instead there was anger and, shockingly, _focus_.

"Wade?" He called into the space, holding his head because his eyes felt as if they were going to pop. "Wade!"

A box appeared in front of him, text on a yellow background. **Cable? Hubby!**

"Wade?"

 _Pop!_ Another box appeared. **Expecting someone else?**

"I--no--What's. Wade, what are you _doing?_ What's been done to you?"

Because something _had_ been done. Wade was--Wade would never--all those _people_ , their friends…

 **The X-Men broke it.** The text seemed gleeful, somehow. **Are you surprised? I'm not surprised. I'm surprised by how not surprised I am-**

" _Wade._ "

**\--wait. No, I'm not. Stupid X-Men--**

"Broke _what_ , Wade?" This impatience was familiar, at least. The boxes continued to appear, forming a corral around him. Cable spun to keep up with them and found himself growing dizzy.

**\--It. Everything. The movieverse continuity. Chuck and Magnet-Man's bromance. Me.**

Cable tried to think of what his father--or Emma, or Xavier--could have done to Wade to cause all of this. The core of the X-Men, the Avengers, the Fantastic Four and countless others, even the _Hulk_ , all dead within _days_ , and Deadpool showing no signs of slowing down. Xavier had made a home for himself on that road to hell, but Emma didn’t take to fiddling that didn’t concern her and her ilk--

 _No_. It didn’t matter, not at the moment. 

**It doesn’t, does it. Deal with that later (not that they’ll ever learn their lesson). In the meantime, watch out for Red, alrighty?**

“Red?” 

**You’ll know.**

“Wade--!” 

But the boxes disappeared with a happy _blip!_ , and Cable was alone once again.

He considered his options for a moment, wary and alert for any scarlet flashes in his peripheral vision. The geography of a given mindscape was much like another when it came down to it, and Wade’s could not be much different. Even insane as he was-- _and that_ awareness--he was still human, with all of the limitations that fact assured. Even mutants, even telepaths, had a shape to their minds that could not be changed.

It followed that the signs of distress and tampering would be the same. Symbolism was always important to remember when tromping across another’s brain matter. Cable looked for crevasses, for rends and sore spots that the whizzing Golden Girls memories swirled around, but found none. 

He walked for ages, sending pings back to his own mind to check that Deadpool hadn’t somehow begun to hack at him despite his paralytic hold, a little buoyed each time the ping returned successfully. But the lack of obvious problem was troubling...

Then he felt a shudder, a twist in the world around him, and a pack of Cosby Show clips scattered.

_What do you plan to do?_

A red box appeared, the cheery sound effects conspicuously absent. 

Cable regarded it warily, hyperaware of his flanks and unguarded back. The text box hovered curiously before adding, as if egged on by his silence: _What do you think will help?_

This was Red, of course. Already he saw that troubling focus in it, behind its coherence and its restraint. 

“And what exactly are _you_ doing?” And what was it in the first place? Where had it come from?

Cable reached out to feel at the edges of the box until it faded away. His fingertips buzzed, and it didn’t _feel_ foreign, but it certainly wasn't an encouraging find.

"Wade? Or Red, one of you--Red, what are you?"

_Does it matter?_

**C'mon lover, think about it.**

_Don't_ tell _him--_

**What's always been the monkey on my back?**

Cable thought of the _awareness--_

**\--no no no nono not that. Ignore that, that's not for you,**

_\--he shouldn't here, Wade. Make him leave._

**_think_ , Nate, that's what you're good at. Right now you're just looking, and you're not even looking in the right places--**

_Don't help him!_

Wade's world around him _rolled_ , a rumble rushing beneath his feet. The edges of the red boxes looked sharp enough to slice.

**Bea is beautiful but she's not important at the moment (sorrysorrysorry) you _need to hurry_ please--**

_Stop. Stop!_ STOP.

A noise like a snarling shriek of pain sounded from all around, as loud as an air-raid siren and in time with the rumbles. They came angrier and stronger with each wave, until Cable was nearly knocked off his feet by the combined punch. He sent off a ping as he stumbled further into Wade's mindscape.

And it came back to him, but not-right, and he checked--Deadpool was twitching outside--

A yellow box appeared in front of him and he nearly collided with it. 

**HURRY.**

_NO, STOP. LEAVE. WE WILL FINISH THIS._

**What is THIS?! You won't tell me! You're just--**

_WE WILL--_

The boxes forgot about him, consumed by their argument. They appeared in the handfuls, by the dozens, becoming a moving, razor-edged obstacle course for the him as Cable staggered towards a pile of memories that pulses with relevance. 

They were runny, mishandled childs' watercolors, some smoke-scored and others so filled with bullet holes they're scraps, but they spread warm in Cable's mind when he held them and he found ( _Deadpool's fingers curling, searching for his katana_ ) a straightjacket. Xaiver and Logan ( **the X-Men broke it** ) and Wade with straps across his chest.

A doctor. _I was born a coal-miner's daughter_. Pain and

_GET AWAY FROM THAT._

red. 

Red was a substantial force behind Wade's turnaround, but ( _gloved fingers on the hilt wrap_ ) the memories told Cable nothing he could use. He scrambled to think, blocked out the noise and the ( _hard to grip, skin constantly moving changing shape_ ) quakes--

Something was important there. Cable clawed the sense back. Fingers. Gloved fingers. Hilt-- _no_ , fingers. Skin moving…constantly…

**MY CANCER, DUMBASS.**

Cable swore, doubling over as pain bloomed in his sternum.

**ALWAYS FORGET ABOUT THAT, ALL OF YOU. POOR OLE DEADYPOOL, CAN'T KEEP HIS THOUGHTS STRAIGHT, CAN'T TALK HUMAN WITHOUT A POP FUCKING CULTURE REFERENCE.**

A yellow box appeared angrily at the end of his nose.

**NO ONE REMEMBERS _WHY_.**

**IT'S A PRETTY FUCKING IMPORTANT WHY, NATE.**

The _awareness_ \--

**NO, YOU HAD IT Nate don't lose it please don't we're out of _time_**

_OUT._

Between he noise and chaos, the pain and the boxes crowding him--Cable was thrown out, and came to with a butterfly knife stuck between his heart and right lung and Deadpool's katana coming fast for his throat. He turned it away, saved only by a reflex ingrained sometime between the fourth and sixth World War.

It caught the side of his neck, just deep enough to make him sweat. Deadpool's mask was narrow-eyed at him, and his shoulders shook. The blades held steady.

It took effort. It took a _huge_ effort, but Cable managed to freeze him in place. 

"Red is the cancer. I don't--" Cable grit his teeth against the _effort_. Deadpool was difficult to hold (Wade so loved to be contradictory). Always changing, always shifting, he has to continuously adjust his grip. "--know what I can do."

Beast was dead. Logan was--who knows where--Rogue, likely dead. Archangel, he doesn't know. Strange dead. Dr. Pym. Who could heal, of who was still alive? Who could _help_ \--

Deadpool's katana slid a little further into Cable's neck; he'd forgotten about it, the blade still in his skin. Blood ran to his shoulder in thin lines, and the butterfly knife twitched, trying to twist, cut to the right--or the left. Deadpool was good at what he does, always left himself options.

They all forgot that. 

He couldn't suppress the cancer. The thought alone made him cringe. Wade and it combined would run him ragged. He couldn't--the cancer's sentience, maybe, but--

Would the techno-virus help? Cable doubted it; surely it would be too much. The cancer and the healing factor, the _awareness_ , Wade's general--existence--

"Wade, please," he grunted. The katana cut deeper. "I don't know how to help you." 

Cancer. Naturally occurring, cells and stripped gears, impossible to cure, but to treat.

The blade budged again, and Cable knew it will strike something important soon. Lodged as it was, he hesitated to breath. 

The techno-virus, then. If nothing else, maybe it would--overwhelm--Wade, and kill Deadpool, leaving this timestream to try pull itself back together.

Somehow. A world shown that its heroes ware mortal and it's greatest villains paltry. He'd seen them come back from worse, he's sure.

"I'm sorry, Wade." Either way this ended.

He pried at a telekinetic muscle clenched so long as to virtually petrify, heart thundering, and directed the disease he'd feared since childhood to

**_lover_ **

Deadpool yanked free of his hold with a howl and crumpled, spasming. His spine bowed as the various forces in his body fought, ripples of--visible beneath his suit. Banded whips of techno-mesh covered in webs of regenerating skin speared through and swayed drunkenly in the air. Cable heard ribs snap in uneven succession, followed by a loud _crack_ that could only be a femur and a low whimper. Wade gored at the dirt with his fingers. 

Cable paced a wide circle around him, cautious of his reach, and crouched by his head.

He waited. 

It did not end quickly. Hours may have passed while Wade withered and Cable slipped in and out of meditation, still bleeding from their struggle and exhausted. There seemed to be no peak in the struggle--at least not one Cable could detect. 

Eventually, though, it ended. The spasms weakened very suddenly, and Wade's heavy, sobbing breathing became uncomfortably distinct.

Cable watched, tensed, as Deadpool dragged himself over to his folded legs. Not to attack as he mostly believed, but to hide his face against Cable's thighs and shiver as the last waves tore through him.

Ever cautious, Cable slowly lowered a hand to his scalp. He stroked gently, his fingers dragging lightly.

"Come on, Wade," He said, low, private. "Come on…"

He didn't know what would happen next. If the TK virus won--then he would have only created another problem for a world now ill-equipped to handle it (and _why_ hadn't he thought of that before). If the cancer, and he would likely be cut down in short moments. If neither triumphed, and Wade's body failed…Problem solved.

"N…ate…aaarr _rrrghh!_ " Wade's grip on his knee tightened to pain, meanwhile Cable's body was rigid. He sensed the moment of truth had come.

The veins of tech and growth beneath Wade's skin and suit went abruptly still, and the tension throughout the mercenary's body released like a sprung trap. Wade moaned piteously and pressed closer, now properly in Cable's lap.

Cable continued to watch, his anxiety mounting.

He was too damn _still_.

Wade was never so still, even asleep. Even unconscious. Cable felt ill.

But that was...

"Wade?" He barked.

He felt a heartbeat against his leg, one first fluttery, dubious thump, and another, stronger one. And he finally identified Wade's consciousness against his shields, feeble but recovering. He prodded at it gently, regretting that he had no strength to give to its efforts.

And then...

"Ohh…ow."

Relief was immediate. Cable snorted. "I'll bet."

"That…didn't feel nice…"

He resumed his petting. Wade mumbled nonsense against his hip and twitched without energy.

The skin beneath his palm was smooth, equally clear of cancerous sores and writhing organic metal.

Wade's eyes were alert, for the most part, when Cable craned to check, albeit narrowed with exhaustion.

"How do you feel?" He asked, somewhat unnecessarily. But he felt awkward, a need to disturb the silence.

"...Well. Like uh…oh, fuck. Nate. Nate. What did I do?"

Nate closed his eyes. Fear and regret were hot, scratching against his shields.

"Nothing a little time travel won't fix." He said, after a beat. "If you're up for it."

"Oh, yeah, sure." Wade coughed. "Bring it on."


End file.
